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Cognitive
Tinderization of Feeling
January 31, 2016
Tinder’s binary mechanisms can be a template for a whole way of life in which everything is an option and processing beats...
January 31, 2016
Tinder’s binary mechanisms can be a template for a whole way of life in which everything is an option and processing beats...
How to Evaluate an Argument Like a Trained Scientist
January 27, 2016
From the pontifications of the politician on the nightly news, to the latest tabloid health scare, we're constantly bombarded by other people's arguments – their attempts to make a particular claim based on some kind of evidence. How best to evaluate all these assertions and counter-assertions? Some insights come from a new study in the journal Thinking and Reasoning that's compared the argument evaluation strategies of scientists (advanced doctoral students and post-docs in psychology) with those...
January 27, 2016
From the pontifications of the politician on the nightly news, to the latest tabloid health scare, we're constantly bombarded by other people's arguments – their attempts to make a particular claim based on some kind of evidence. How best to evaluate all these assertions and counter-assertions? Some insights come from a new study in the journal Thinking and Reasoning that's compared the argument evaluation strategies of scientists (advanced doctoral students and post-docs in psychology) with those...
Hazards of the Job: Good Listening and Mental Health
January 26, 2016
To the extent that a mediator’s job involves listening to people complain and engage in negative behaviour, mediators face a serious mental health hazard. Research shows that listening to ongoing negativity impairs the brain function of the listener. Yes! Listening can be bad for you if you have a whinging party in the room, and it’s even worse if you have two or more. Trevor Blake writes about this phenomenon in his book, Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life. While...
January 26, 2016
To the extent that a mediator’s job involves listening to people complain and engage in negative behaviour, mediators face a serious mental health hazard. Research shows that listening to ongoing negativity impairs the brain function of the listener. Yes! Listening can be bad for you if you have a whinging party in the room, and it’s even worse if you have two or more. Trevor Blake writes about this phenomenon in his book, Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life. While...
Emotion Recognition Software: Future Tool for Negotiators?
January 25, 2016
Software is available that developers claim can measure the emotions revealed on a person’s face. If it’s accurate and could be used discretely on some kind of personal device or Google Glass, future negotiators could have real time input on the emotions the other party is showing. This could change how a negotiation is done. Microsoft has a new app that reportedly can measure feelings exhibited on a person’s face when a photo is taken. It breaks up the image of the face into emotional constituents...
January 25, 2016
Software is available that developers claim can measure the emotions revealed on a person’s face. If it’s accurate and could be used discretely on some kind of personal device or Google Glass, future negotiators could have real time input on the emotions the other party is showing. This could change how a negotiation is done. Microsoft has a new app that reportedly can measure feelings exhibited on a person’s face when a photo is taken. It breaks up the image of the face into emotional constituents...
Convincing Based on Logic and Facts a Losing Proposition
January 21, 2016
We all like to think how smart, sophisticated and logical we are. We think we can’t be manipulated by people trying to use our emotions in order to get us to buy something or agree to someone’s opinion. We may be overestimating ourselves. The truth is an argument based on an emotional appeal has a greater chance of getting someone to agree with you than facts that support your position, according to an article in Quartz. Rob Yeung, a psychologist and author of How to Stand Out, states the most...
January 21, 2016
We all like to think how smart, sophisticated and logical we are. We think we can’t be manipulated by people trying to use our emotions in order to get us to buy something or agree to someone’s opinion. We may be overestimating ourselves. The truth is an argument based on an emotional appeal has a greater chance of getting someone to agree with you than facts that support your position, according to an article in Quartz. Rob Yeung, a psychologist and author of How to Stand Out, states the most...
Which System Would the Jury Use?
January 21, 2016
If you have been reading my blogs, you know that I am interested in neuroscience and the notion as discussed by Daniel Kahneman...
January 21, 2016
If you have been reading my blogs, you know that I am interested in neuroscience and the notion as discussed by Daniel Kahneman...
Unconscious Trust Formed in Milliseconds
January 12, 2016
We’ve known that our brains form first impressions of both people and things very, very quickly. A 2006 study showed that a mere 50 milliseconds were enough to form an opinion about a website. More recently, researchers have discovered that our brains form an impression of faces even when the exposure time is so short we’re not consciously aware we saw them. The scientists found that our amygdala, an area of the brain associated with emotion and decision-making, makes a judgment about the trustworthiness...
January 12, 2016
We’ve known that our brains form first impressions of both people and things very, very quickly. A 2006 study showed that a mere 50 milliseconds were enough to form an opinion about a website. More recently, researchers have discovered that our brains form an impression of faces even when the exposure time is so short we’re not consciously aware we saw them. The scientists found that our amygdala, an area of the brain associated with emotion and decision-making, makes a judgment about the trustworthiness...
Alemanno on Public & Private Nudging
January 12, 2016
Alberto Alemanno (HEC Paris; NYU School of Law) has posted The Future of Behavioural Change: Balancing Public Nudging vs Private Nudging (2nd AIM Lecture, May 6, 2015) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Public authorities, including the European Union and its Member States, are increasingly interested in exploiting behavioral insights through public action. They increasingly do so through choice architecture, i.e. the alteration of the environment of choice surrounding a particular decision making context...
January 12, 2016
Alberto Alemanno (HEC Paris; NYU School of Law) has posted The Future of Behavioural Change: Balancing Public Nudging vs Private Nudging (2nd AIM Lecture, May 6, 2015) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Public authorities, including the European Union and its Member States, are increasingly interested in exploiting behavioral insights through public action. They increasingly do so through choice architecture, i.e. the alteration of the environment of choice surrounding a particular decision making context...
Memory-Boosting Devices Tested in Humans
January 10, 2016
A strategy designed to improve memory by delivering brain stimulation through implanted electrodes is undergoing trials in humans. The US military, which is funding the research, hopes that the approach might help many of the thousands of soldiers who have developed deficits to their long-term memory as a result of head trauma. At the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago, Illinois, on 17–21 October, two teams funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency presented evidence that...
January 10, 2016
A strategy designed to improve memory by delivering brain stimulation through implanted electrodes is undergoing trials in humans. The US military, which is funding the research, hopes that the approach might help many of the thousands of soldiers who have developed deficits to their long-term memory as a result of head trauma. At the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago, Illinois, on 17–21 October, two teams funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency presented evidence that...
Do Long-Term Memories Punch Holes in the Brain?
January 9, 2016
How the brain encodes and stores memories is one of the enduring mysteries of neuroscience. Memories are thought to be encoded by the strengthening of synaptic connections, and many researchers believe that they are retained by proteins at the synapses. And yet, while memories can persist over our entire lifetimes, these synaptic proteins are continuously being destroyed and replaced, over a time-frame of hours or days. Several years ago, neuroscientist Roger Tsien of the University of California,...
January 9, 2016
How the brain encodes and stores memories is one of the enduring mysteries of neuroscience. Memories are thought to be encoded by the strengthening of synaptic connections, and many researchers believe that they are retained by proteins at the synapses. And yet, while memories can persist over our entire lifetimes, these synaptic proteins are continuously being destroyed and replaced, over a time-frame of hours or days. Several years ago, neuroscientist Roger Tsien of the University of California,...
